


shatter on impact

by skuls



Series: X Files Rewatch Series [33]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Lots of Pain and Angst, Movie: The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008), Pre-Episode: s10e01 My Struggle, break up fic (canonical)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 11:44:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15072464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuls/pseuds/skuls
Summary: An examination of the reasons Scully left Mulder before season 10.





	shatter on impact

**Author's Note:**

> this fic serves to examine the break-up: my headcanon as to why it happened, and why mulder and scully ended up the way we see them in the revival. (aka ooc smarthouse’s origin story.) this is mostly a set-up/prequel to MSI, but it also references IWTB and sets up a couple of revival storylines. there are several references to the definitions of home and melting snow (in addition to running on the same timeline as both stories), but it is not necessary to have read this to read those.
> 
> warning up front: this is not a happy story. i apologize if there are any inaccurate depictions of trauma or the like in this story. 
> 
> everything in this story will be resolved in a sort-of-sequel casefile i’m working on that’s gonna span seasons 10 and 11 when i’m done, but as always, both stories can stand alone.

She misses him at odd moments.

Usually, it's at night, lying alone in a stranger's bed that is too cold, or curled up on the couch with a book, or eating frozen dinners by herself. (She misses Mulder's cooking, the nights he actually cooked; she's getting horribly tired of Lean Cuisine and Stouffer's and salads from the Wal-Mart deli.) But sometimes, it's the moments she'd never have expected—like when she's at work, performing a surgery, or going through forms in her office, or driving home alone at night. It's the rare times she's asked out by coworkers or when she starts to drive to Farrs Corner, by instinct, before realizing, or the few times they've actually been in contact. Mostly texts—mostly from her, mostly asking if he is okay—but sometimes phone calls or even meeting in person. They have dinner sometimes, and she always regrets it. It's too painful to see him in the wake of what she's done, to have to tell him no when he asks her to come home. She didn't want to leave, and now she doesn't want to go back. She barely even knows how to be with him anymore. 

But, still: she misses him. But the biggest question seems to be whether she misses the Mulder of now, holed up in his office looking for a way to save the world, or the Mulder of ten or fifteen years ago. (She likes to think she just misses Mulder—any incarnation of him, this love of her life—but she barely knows who that is anymore.)

\---

It hadn't been that bad, at first. Outside of a few harsh fights, they'd be fine. Almost happy, even. They moved into their house in early 2004, and everything had been fine. They'd thrown themselves into fixing up the house, looking for ways to make it theirs. It had felt like it would be okay, for a while. It had felt like it would be okay for years, but she'd felt it the most right then: the two of them standing side by side as they painted the living room, paint drying on their hands and cheeks and under their nails; the two of them putting together furniture or lugging things up the stairs; the two of them fixing the shingles on the side of the house or on the roof; the two of them curled together on the new rug on living room floor; the two of them sectioning off a section of the yard for a garden. Mulder claimed it was going to be his “project” when she went to work, and when she'd started her residency, she'd usually come home to find him dusty with dirt, triumphant and cocky. Which eventually became writing, in the fall and winter months. But after nine months of Scully being gone long hours—sometimes even days at a time—she’d come home to find him holed up in his office, searching through books or newspapers or the Internet for proof of conspiracies. 

She didn't ask what he was doing in there for months. Maybe that was the problem. 

They ate breakfast together, or dinner together, if she was home for dinner. He packed her lunches sometimes, in brown paper bags, and wrote her name on the front in Sharpee.  _ Dr. Dana Scully,  _ normally, or  _ Dr. Special Agent Dana Scully, M.D.,  _ if he was feeling cute. (She told him that she wasn't an FBI agent anymore, and he told her that she'd always be an FBI agent in his eyes, and she'd always rolled her eyes affectionately. It had been less cute after the whole ordeal with Monica Bannan.) He'd call her sometimes at work, and hearing his voice always felt like a relief, but she'd always make him hang up before too long out of worry, fear that he'd get caught.  

There was a picture of William pinned to the wall of his office. Scully had her own copy, tucked away somewhere where she never saw it, and she could usually talk herself out of looking at it. But Mulder's copy of the picture was always there, unavoidable to look at, impossible to ignore. She tried not to look at it when she was in his office because it alternately made her want to cry or scream or flinch. If she looked at the picture and had no reaction at all (or the rare occurrence of affection rising in her chest, a good memory), she called it a win. 

(She daydreamed about their son, the person he would've grown up to be; he got older as the years went by, and she had a harder time picturing it, but still she did. Thought about being his mother, Mulder being his father, him sleeping in the bedroom down the hall and playing in the backyard and boarding the school bus she sometimes saw rumbling down the country road on the other side of their gate. It never lasted long. Reality always shocked her like a douse of cold water; they weren't parents. They'd never be parents.)

The distance grew slowly. So slowly that Scully barely even noticed. 

They'd been in the house for four years when the Monica Bannan came along, tearing through their steadily built relationship like a hurricane. Scully was still a little stunned. What had started as an attempt to be the bigger person and save a woman's life had ended in Mulder sinking into obsession and Scully curling up in fear and shoving him away. Their less-than-valiant return to the FBI had happened to coincide with her treatment of a little boy who seemed to helplessly remind her of William. She tried not to think about that ordeal too much, but one part of it kept standing out in her mind: the moment that she'd told him that she wouldn't be coming home. The moment he told her that they couldn't be together. 

That had all gone away, more or less, and they'd gotten on a plane and flown to some far-off tropical island. Scully hadn't been to the beach in years, and it was something of a relief in the middle of summer. They spent two weeks in the sun, using up all the vacation days Scully had sectioned off after years of taking none, and she had really thought they might be okay. Mulder tasted like salt every time she kissed him. 

They seemed to be a little closer when they got back, like they knew how close they veered to their inevitable future. Clingier, more apologetic—Mulder especially, because he had always been the martyr. He cooked extravagant meals—he was getting markedly better, thankfully, and she teased him constantly about being the perfect house husband—and did the laundry and cleaned and always, always came out of his office before she came home. He read books she suggested so that they could discuss them together and rented movies and went shopping, now that he could safely go into town. And on her end, she asked for less strenuous hours (it didn't necessarily happen, but at least they were considering it) and tried to be more present when she was home. Didn't flinch at the picture of William in his office and related stories of their lost son on the rare occasion he asked her to. Listened to his own stories of things that had happened long ago and even volunteered her own. If she pretended that things didn't bother her, then they didn't, right? 

It all shifted when, nine months after the Bannan case, there was a supposed UFO sighting in New Mexico. She came home from work to find Mulder pattering around the house, eyes manic and talking too fast in a way she hadn't seen in years. And in that moment, she realized that the only thing limiting him to investigating in his office before had been the criminal charges. Now there was nothing stopping him.

“You should come with me,” Mulder said at one point, folding a shirt and stuffing it in his suitcase. “This could be a step, Scully, this could be the answer to how we stop this invasion in four years.” He looked up at her with hope in his eyes, maybe even pleading. 

She wanted to say,  _ I told you, Mulder, this isn't my life anymore _ , but she didn't want to start another fight. Didn't want to admit that all she cared about in this apocalypse that she could barely even think about without feeling sick was keeping the two of them and her mother safe. (Maybe Bill, but she'd never convince him; maybe William, but she couldn't go looking for him, couldn't tear him away from everything he'd ever known. He was  _ seven _ now, and she couldn't stand it.) Instead, she said, “Mulder, I… I can't get off work.”

Disappointment flickered over his face, but he nodded. Kissed her sweetly as he went back to packing, and she couldn't even find the words to say that the last time he'd gone chasing UFOs alone, she had  _ buried  _ him. 

She let him go because she was weak and afraid, and then she worked three straight days at the hospital without stopping, without taking a break, because all she could think of was  _ lights _ and  _ Mulder's broken body _ and  _ oh God, not again _ and of her baby, frightened and crying against her chest.  _ This is my baby!  _ she'd screamed at the cultists or whoever had come to witness the birth, but he wasn't hers anymore.  _ You can't have him!  _ she'd screamed, but now she had nightmares of a little dark-haired boy in a hospital, wires attached to him and doctors bustling around as he whispered,  _ I want to go home. _ He wasn't hers, and she had no fucking idea whose he was. She knew the dreams weren't real—she  _ knew  _ they weren't real, which is why she never told Mulder, because it  _ couldn't  _ be real, it couldn't be—but sometimes she got the sense that the boy could see her, too, ridiculous as it was. It was wishful thinking, silly daydreaming, but that boy was not the real William. 

She worked for three days until she felt like she was going to fall over, until the nuns sent her home, and then she drove back to the house in a drowsy haze and fell asleep on the couch, throw blanket draped over her. When she woke up, minutes or hours later, Mulder was sitting on the couch beside her, a neutral look on his face and his callused palm on her cheek, and she felt a rush of relief that they didn't have to play this horrible game again. He'd come back. She smiled and pulled him down on top of her in one relieved, desperate motion. 

\---

What she kept coming back to was the fact that she'd said she'd never leave him. She'd told him that, and more than once. The thought had never even occurred to her until then. After everything she'd been through, how could she possibly… She couldn't. And as soon as it was all over, she told herself she wouldn't. She loved him. She'd do anything for him. She didn't  _ want _ to leave him—especially not with all the dark pieces of their past, not with the apocalypse looming in the future. She couldn't believe she had said it, when they only had a few years left, just four years until the world went to hell and they might lose each other forever. That scared her more than anything. So she held on, out of desperation more than anything, but also out of simply not knowing what else to do. If things got bad, Mulder spending hours upon hours in his office or only wanting to talk about the invasion, or memories of William getting too strong, too painful, the thought of leaving him slid into her mind like an ice pick: sharp and freezing. 

It was a dangerous, horrifying thought, and it always left her guilty and breathless. So she didn't think of it, most of the time. It usually wasn't that bad, anyway. She'd get home after her shift either late at night or early in the morning, and they fall onto the couch or into bed together, Mulder wrapping his arms around her and resting his chin on top of her head. When he actually came out of his office, that is. On nights that were bad, she was usually alone while he worked manically in his office—sometimes weeks of a time of loneliness—she’d think about leaving him, and then push the thought away, and then think of it again, gingerly.  _ If it stays like this,  _ she told herself,  _ then I have no choice.  _ But it never did. He always snapped out of it, became the sweet man she remembered, and she told herself again and again,  _ I won't leave him, I can't leave him.  _

Sometimes she actually looked forward to the apocalypse. She usually fielded all discussion of it, because the entire thing terrified her to death, but when they did discuss it, Mulder seemed more animated and alive then he'd seemed in years. He loved the search, she was reminded, and he loved her and William, but now all he had was her and the search, probably spurned on by the fact that there was yet another lost child in the mix. It was silly, but she thought maybe the search would give him purpose, make him the way she remembered him. (Or maybe she didn't want him the way she remembers him back then, single-minded and obsessive and occasionally selfish. She wasn't sure. The good memories were fleeting and the bad memories were strong and she loved Mulder catastrophically, in an honest way that contrasted with the way she'd denied it for years.)

She didn't know what to do. She didn't. He kissed her and loved her and held her on the floor of the living room as they watched a movie, the fire he'd made, the stars out of a window he'd cleaned and smiled at her in a pleased sort of way. ( _ Look what I did, honey! _ ) He took her into his office and showed her hidden, coded chats with informants, evidence that the aliens were coming, the plan he was creating so that they wouldn't die. She smiled and nodded along. She agreed to the plans he made because she trusted him and she couldn't possibly get involved.

One night, she suggested he get a job in a soft voice. Not in an accusing get-off-your-lazy-ass sort of way. She said it as gently as she possibly could, trying her best not to sound like a bitch. “It’s not because you  _ need _ to. I just don't want you to be bored,” she said. “Out here all alone every day. Now that it's a possibility, I thought maybe you'd…” 

Mulder laughed in a sheepish, nervous sort of way and shrugged his shoulders. “What would I do, Scully?” 

And that was that. 

\---

2009 was a good year. Mulder seemed happier and she felt happier, somehow. He drove into town sometimes, brought her lunch from the deli she liked and ate with her in her office. Made friends with the other doctors and nurses and always kissed her goodbye. He picked up books at the library and read to her at night in bed (or she read to him, sometimes), he drove her to work sometimes and picked her up after a day of extreme grocery shopping and library visits, he took her out on dates like they were in high school. It was ridiculous, and Scully loved it. He made her laugh so hard her stomach hurt. 

It snowed on her birthday, a near-blizzard that led to her calling the hospital apologetically to tell them that there was no way she could get to work. (The road out to their house was rarely plowed, and the driveway was nearly impossible to shovel, and Mulder's mouth on her neck was more than enough to convince her.) She would've been fine spending the day inside, where it was nice and warm and dry, but Mulder dug up their moth-eaten coats and hats and scarves and teased her about her aversion to the cold until she conceded. Let Mulder braid back her hair and wrap a scarf around the bottom half of her face while she layered a coat over a sweater over a long-sleeved t-shirt (because she did have an aversion to the cold). 

It was blindly white outside in a way that reminded her of Antarctica, gave her the urge to wrap herself around Mulder until he wasn't frozen anymore.  _ William would love playing in the snow _ , she thought involuntarily, and then shook off the thought until it was gone.

Snow dotted Mulder’s dark hair and he grinned up at her as he molded snow between his palms like a little kid instead of a man pushing fifty. “Pretty, isn't it?” he said, lugging the snowball at the side of the house. Scully wrinkled her nose in disapproval and he grinned, taking her mittened hands in his bare ones (because of course he wouldn't just put on a fucking pair of gloves; she listed off the symptoms of frostbite, and he smirked and said, “Massachusetts baby,” and she'd given up, fine, get frostbite, see if I care—although she would, of course). She could feel the chill of his fingers through the wet wool. He tucked some strands of hair behind her ear, his icy fingers brushing her cheek, and she shuddered. 

“You need to warm up,” she said. 

“Oh, really.” 

“Yes.” She tugged her hands away in faux-irritation and huffed dramatically. “I have standards, you know. Ones that don't involve men with freezing cold hands.”

“You're cute when you're cold,” Mulder said. “Your nose and cheeks get all red.”

“Shut up, Mulder,” she said without meaning it. 

“Also when you get sunburned…” He kissed her suddenly, and his mouth was the warmest thing about him. He kissed her until she was breathless and pulled back, nuzzling her hair with his chilly nose. “Scully?” he whispered in her ear. 

“Mmm?” She was content to just stand there for a minute, her arms wrapped clumsily around him (hindered by all the layers) and just watch the snow fall. It was a good birthday, she thought. They swayed a little together, like they were dancing. 

“Marry me.”

She stiffened a little in astonishment in his arms. “What?” she said dumbly, a little incredulous, and pulled back in surprise. 

He looked completely serious, was looking at her in the way he'd looked at her in a jail cell years and years ago: like she was the only thing in the world. “Marry me,” he said again, his wet palm touching her cheek. 

“You're not serious,” she said, and then mentally flinched. This was hardly how she pictured herself responding to proposals as a little girl. 

“I'm very serious,” said Mulder, and he didn't seem discouraged. Maybe he'd expected her to react this way. “What's stopping us? Neither of us are federal fugitives. Our jobs don't prevent it. We're here, we're together, we're happy. Why not?”

She  _ was _ happy, in that moment, when Mulder took her mittened hands in his like he was going to slide a ring on her finger. (She was guessing he didn't have a ring because Mulder did everything in a spur-of-the-moment motion, and she didn't care one bit.) But what she mostly felt, then, was stunned. “Oh, Mulder,” she said in a gaspy breath. “I don't…”

Mulder leaned down to rest his forehead against hers, brushed some snowflakes out of her hair. “It's okay if the answer’s no,” he whispered. “It's okay. I won't… resent you or anything. I just wanted to ask, I wanted you to know how I felt.”

She moved closer until she was embracing him again, her face against his coat, and thought of Antarctica. He'd come to the ends of the Earth for her. “I love you,” she whispered. 

His hand was on the back of her head, his lips cold against her hair. “I love you,” he said back, and then they didn't mention it again, his corny, sweet, silly fucking proposal in the snow. 

Didn't mention it, until months later when Scully started crying out of nowhere. Started crying because she realized that today was the day he came back to life, eight years earlier, the anniversary of their son's birth and the day she gave him up were both coming up, and they'd lost so much, and she'd thought she'd never see him again, and they were together. She'd almost left him and he'd almost died and she never wanted to lose him again. She was crying, shoulders shaking, and he wrapped his arms around her from behind, whispered, “Hey,” into her hair, “what's wrong?” And she said, “Yes,” her voice trembling. 

“Yes?” he whispered in confusion, his hand moving over her ribs. And then, in understanding, he added, “Yes, you'll…?”

“Yes,” she hissed, covering his hands with hers, rubbing her face into his shirt. “Yes, yes, yes.”

\---

They'd gone to the courthouse the next day. He'd bought her a ring and she'd given him one that she'd had for a long time. It was her father's, he and her mother had agreed to leave it to her in the will (because Maggie was practical and somewhat unsentimental and kept very few things of her father's). It had been a shock, she'd never expected it, but she'd kept it all these years for reasons unknown. And now she knew. 

She still has her ring; she keeps it on top of her dresser. A simple, pale sort of gold. She hasn't divorced him because she doesn't want to, wants to believe that this will all go away someday and somehow be okay, but she doesn't wear the ring. It's impractical for her job, people ask too many questions, it's too painful to look at it. She holds onto the memory, though, holds onto the ring because she can't let go. She won't. Sometimes if she's feeling sentimental, she'll slip it down the gold chain she wears to rest next to her cross. 

\---

2009 was a good year. 2010 was a good year. Those were the years Scully actually thought everything might be okay

\---

2011 was where it all started to fall apart.

\---

Mulder got obsessive again. Buried his head in the sand of leads on the upcoming alien invasion when informants started frantically emailing again. It was almost all he talked about. “We have to be ready if we're going to survive this, Scully,” he'd say at dinner, tapping his fork on his plate as he talked. “We have to have a plan. I know we can survive this if we just stick together.” He'd take her hand in hers and squeeze her fingers, whisper, “We're going to be okay,” and Scully would smile wobbily and wish she lived in another reality, one where their son was sitting at the table with them and they were safe, they didn't have to worry about apocalypses or dying. She was terrified of what would happen to her family, her poor mom and her brothers she barely spoke to and her son, out there somewhere where she couldn't protect him. She was terrified of losing Mulder, the only family she had left. It was easier not to think about it.

(On William's tenth birthday, she spent the entire day in bed, staring at the wall. Didn't say anything when Mulder tried to coax her into conversation, or when he called in sick to work, or when he wrapped his arms around her and whispered, “I know it's William's birthday,” in a choked, sad voice into her ear. He sounded sad and regretful, but all Scully could think was that she couldn't believe that he'd forgotten. Nine years. She had missed  _ nine years  _ of her baby's life, and  Mulder had missed all ten. She didn't move all day, her eyes dry, her chest aching, and Mulder had eventually given up on trying to coax her into talking or comforting her, gotten up from bed and left the room, sniffling quietly.)

Mulder lost himself in the pile of apocalypse leads and she let it happen. Asked for more hours at work. Hung her ring on her cross and fidgeted with it absently between surgeries. He called her with updates at meals and she nodded along, speaking when necessary. He kissed her in the doorway and led her to his office where he showed her the plans they'd made that day. She felt like she was sleepwalking, following him through these day-to-day routines monotonously. 

Mulder told her that he was going to Oregon to follow a lead and he should be back in four days. He was gone for a week. Scully didn't begin to panic until the end of the fifth day, when she came home from work and found the house still empty. And then she was frantic, calling in sick to work, calling Mulder to no answer, calling Skinner in a panic. Skinner seemed a bit preoccupied—considering he still had a job at the FBI, that wasn't a surprise—but he promised he'd make some calls. Scully pinned her hair back and went into his office, spent hours bent over his computer with his glasses sliding down her nose and twisting at her ring furiously, called Mulder constantly. She stayed up for hours, exhaustion tugging at every part of her being, and found nothing, paced the house with her hands clenched in her hair, fell asleep on the couch and slept in tense spurts. On the seventh day, Mulder came home, and she hugged him so eagerly that he seemed a little stunned. “I thought you weren't coming back,” she whispered into his shirt, and he said, ”Never, never,” in a stunned voice, stroking her hair. 

He'd broken his phone in the process and hadn't thought to call and tell her. She bought him a new one with a strong case that wouldn't shatter on impact.

And from then on, she went with him on his informant meetings. It scared her a little—acknowledging their uncertain future, walking willingly into the darkness—but she wasn't willing to risk losing Mulder on top of everything else. And a part of her liked being in the know, understanding what was going on. Not having to wonder what the hell Mulder was doing and who he was talking to and if she was going to have to lose him again. Mulder seemed grateful that she was with him; they weren't FBI agents anymore and they weren't partners outside of their marriage, but it still felt like the old days, somehow. She went along with it. 

2012 came so fast that Scully couldn't believe it. She was left stunned in the wake of the new year, countdown to Doomsday. Mulder spent midnight half-asleep in her arms, his face buried in her neck. Scully watched the night sky. It was pitch black, dotted with white specks, endlessly silent and large. A year from now, for all she knew, she wouldn't be able to see the sky. She felt stunningly alone.

\---

2012 seemed to start a mental countdown for the both of them. They were suddenly desperate for each other, clingier. They spent most nights that Scully was home together, sitting too close on the couch or lying out on a picnic blanket in the yard to watch the sky. Mulder took her out for dinner every now and then. They spent two weeks in the summer driving the country, because it was their last chance to see the things they'd always wanted to see. Scully felt a startling burst of nostalgia, being in the car with Mulder again; she felt younger than she had in years.  _ Maybe we could drive forever,  _ she thought to herself,  _ give ourselves a chance at outrunning this thing.  _ If it were just them, she'd considered it, but there was still her family to think about.

(Part of her was stunningly ashamed of not working harder to save the rest of the world. She should've alerted as many higher-ups as she could, helped Mulder research, let people know about the information she'd known since 2002. She was a horrible person. But honestly, she had spent years unsure what the hell she could do about it all. She had no power anymore; she was defeated, ridiculed, weak. All she cared about now was keeping her family safe. And if saving as many civilians as possible was a part of that, than so be it. But selfish self-preservation came first in her mind.)

(It was impossible not to think about William with the end this close. She was terrified that he would be a casualty in whatever was coming, with no one knowledgeable or prepared to protect him. These thoughts, these insecurities, transferred into her dreams; again and again, she dreamt of preteen boys like Gibson Praise, getting into fights, doing strange things with unexplainable powers just because he could. She always woke up cursing her subconscious, knowing these images couldn't possibly be real and praying that they weren't; her dreams always showed the boy scared, confused, lost, and she didn't want that for her son.)

“I wish we didn't have to go home,” she whispered to Mulder at the end of their trip. If they didn't go home, none of this was real. 

Mulder squeezed her fingers in an attempt at comfort, but she didn't seem to take much from it. “I know,” he whispered back. “Me, too.”

They went home and kept preparing. Hollowed out the seats of their car to store supplies, stocked up on non perishables. Went over their plan again and again. Time was running out. 

In September, Mulder suggested something that went over about as well as every other time they discussed the subject: he wanted them to go get William. “Not to take him back,” he said before she could protest. “To protect him. Him and his… his parents.” The words sounded painful in his mouth, but his face was set in determination. “We can't… we can't just let this happen to him.”

Scully was already shaking her head. “Mulder, no.”

“Scully, I know this is hard for you,” said Mulder gently. “It's hard for both of us. But we don't have to make him feel like he has to come back with us… hell, we don't even have to tell him that we're his parents. I just… I couldn't live with myself if he…” Mulder swallowed anxiously, unable to go on. 

“I  _ can't _ ,” she insisted, her hands slick with cold sweat. “Mulder, I can't… I can't face him. I can't.” She didn't want William to die—she’d sacrifice herself before she let her son die—but she couldn't look into the eyes of a child she let go ten years ago and  _ admit _ it. She couldn't do that. Her baby, and she'd let him go, had pried his hands off of her when he was clinging to her shirt because he wanted to stay with her. What kind of mother was she? 

“I know it's hard, Scully, I have a lot of guilt, too, but we can't… we can't just…” Murder’s voice trailed off helplessly. 

Scully shook her head, her teeth clenched hard.  _ No, _ she thought, but she couldn't get the words out. He reached out to touch her shoulder and she shook her head harder, turned around and walked away. She couldn't, she couldn't do that. She wanted to say yes because she couldn't let her son die, but she was terrified to look William in the eye after what she'd done. Ten fucking years. She'd let him go and he didn't know her now and she couldn't walk in and destroy the life he'd built without her. She'd do anything to save him, but she couldn't do this. What kind of mother was she. 

Mulder tried to follow her, but she went into the bedroom and threw the lock. Collapsed on the bed in a tangle of limbs and cold sweat; she shivered, even though it was a good seventy degrees outside. Burrowed under the blankets, teeth chattering, and shut her eyes. She was a horrible mother, horrible wife, horrible person. Tears welled in her eyes as she shook like a leaf. 

Mulder didn't bring it up again. He was hurt and upset when she finally came out, but he didn't bring it up. They ate dinner in silence, went to bed in silence, lay side by side without touching. Scully twisted the ring absently, lying awake on her back as she stared at the ceiling. At one point, Mulder got up and crept downstairs; she waited a few minutes before following, quietly. She found Mulder at the kitchen table, his face streaked with tears, a small photo held in his hands. She could recognize it without even seeing it: William. He didn't seem to see her. Maybe he didn't want to.

She stood in the doorway for a few seconds before turning around and going back upstairs alone. 

\---

The world didn't end. They never saw it coming. 

They spent Christmas with her mother because that had been the plan for years. Scully didn't want to frighten her, but she wanted to be ready to protect her from whatever was coming. The idea was that when everything started, they'd have Maggie call Bill in San Diego, because he had to believe it, he couldn't argue if it'd already started. Then they'd try to reach Charlie, although none of them knew how to get in touch with them. 

They went a day in advance. Mulder was distracted, buried deep in his worries, pacing by the windows and looking out of them. Scully was distracted, too, but she tried to tie herself to the moment, just enjoy her time with her mom (who could definitely tell something was up). She felt every hour that ticked by in the pit of her chest, like a weight.

December 22 was cloudy, dreary and freezing. Everybody felt on edge. Maggie commented it several times. But as fearful as Mulder and Scully both were, the day was as boring as it was dreary. Nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. 

Her mother went to bed at nine o'clock on the dot. Mulder and Scully stayed up, Mulder hovering between the window and the large Christmas tree, Scully on the couch. They sat in silence, waiting, but nothing happened. Quiet all around.

When the clock struck midnight, Scully got up slowly and approached Mulder gingerly. The world hadn't ended and she wasn't sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. She wrapped her arms around her husband from behind and rested her cheek on his back. “Mulder,” she whispered. “Let's go to bed.”

“We… we can't,” he said softly, and he sounded drained, stunned and sad. “We can't let them… catch us off guard…”

“They're not coming,” Scully whispered, and pressed a kiss to his spine. Her eyes burned. “It's okay.”

“No, they… they have to…” Mulder shook his head, unhearing. “They have to come, they… everyone told me that they…” He pulled out of her embrace, heading for the door. 

“Mulder,” said Scully, and her voice was so hollow. She loved him so much, but she felt so lost. She didn't know what to do. “Mulder, please…”

He shook his head again, the same determined, stubborn way she had about William. “No, it can't, it can't be… I have to go. Scully, I have to… I have to find out what…” He turned around and headed for the door. “They're coming,” he said through clenched teeth without turning around. “You have to be ready.”

“Where are you going,” she whispered. Why hadn't he asked her to come along.

“I'll call you, okay? Be ready.” The door slammed hard behind him, leaving only silence and a gust of freezing air in his wake. 

\---

The aliens didn't come. Mulder missed Christmas. Scully spent it with her mother, a quiet affair; Maggie stopped asking about Mulder by Christmas Eve. When Scully got back home on the 26th, she found him locked in his office. The beginning of the end. 

And then horribly, guiltily, Scully found herself thinking of the moment four years ago when she said she wouldn't be coming home. A dangerous thought that she loathed with everything in her. But it kept coming up.  _ What do we do now? _ she asked herself.  _ Where do we go, now that we're fighting for nothing?  _ She wished she could believe that they could just settle down into domestic bliss, but they'd been trying that for years and it had never happened. 

She thought sometimes that maybe the unresolved mystery of William was what was holding them back: from happiness, from peace, from each other.Their son was still a ghost, but he loomed larger now that the world hadn't ended. His absence hung over them all like a fog, an absence Scully hated to acknowledge. She wanted more than anything for it to be different. It was her favorite daydream when she was sitting alone, staring off at nothing in particular: the three of them in this house together. A family. 

\---

She debated leaving for months before she actually did it. 

She didn't want to leave. Partially because she was scared, partially because the guilt was so horrible it almost choked her. Partially because Mulder was so far grounded in her life, such a large part, that she barely knew who she was without him. Partially because she didn't want to be  _ without _ him. She felt a jagged missing part of her every time she came home and didn't even see him until he finally stalked upstairs to bed. She couldn't leave Mulder, not after all the times she'd lost him. (She'd buried him, for God's sake, and when he came back, she swore she'd never, ever leave him again, how could she possibly…) She didn't know how to do it, didn't know how to look the love of her life in the eye and say, “I'm leaving you.” 

But she couldn't stop thinking about it. It was her other fantasy, the nights she was so miserable she wanted to throw up. (There were too many ghosts, if ghosts were fucking real.) She'd imagine driving away from this miserable house, making a life for herself that wasn't pure torture. Sometimes, on the nights when Mulder didn't even speak to her—when she'd open the door to his office and call his name in a gentle, wavering voice, and he'd only grunt in response without looking up—she’d be filled with resentment so strong that it frightened her. Other nights, she was filled with a hatred for herself—she was the reason he didn't have his son, she was the reason he'd left them and ended up getting arrested, she was the reason he'd been abducted, she was the reason he was tied down to this miserable little house, isolated, lonely… She didn't know what the hell to do. 

(She was just as much to blame as Mulder. The few times he tried to interact with her, came out of her office, or gave her a sweet, hangdog look, or kissed her softly, or asked her what was wrong. She always pulled away, resentful and sad; she always whispered, “I'm fine, Mulder.” She wasn't, but that's what she always said. They'd both pulled away. A gaping chasm between the two of them, wider than it'd ever been.) 

But she didn't leave. She considered, wrestled with it for months, but she didn't leave because she didn't know where the hell she'd go. To her mother's? She didn't know if her mother would be relieved or disappointed. (She could picture her saying, “Catholics don't get divorces, Dana,” and that always made her shudder from head to toe because she didn't want to get a  _ divorce _ , she didn't want to leave Mulder, not permanently, she was still hoping that some of it might work out, that they could fix the tear between them. But she just didn't know.) She didn't have anywhere to go, so she didn't leave. She packed her bags one night, when they had a fight about William so bad it left them both in tears (Mulder insisting that they should find him, that he might be the key, the reason the apocalypse hadn't happened, and it had sounded so much like the bullshit he'd said a thousand times before—about Gibson Praise and her and a thousand other pawns in a dirty game—that she'd screamed at him until they were both in tears and he'd stayed in his office for two days), but she never made any move to use them. (It was a meager packing anyway, because she couldn't leave Mulder with nothing, and most of the things in their house they'd bought together. Realizing that was another moment when she told herself she couldn't possibly leave.) She couldn't leave, she had to leave, she'd leave but only for a week or two, a month, a year; it changed every goddamn night. She diagnosed Mulder with depression in some desperate grab in convincing him to go to a therapist, and they fought. Mulder made dinner and she declined to eat. She tried to get him to come out and he refused. He found her on the couch after going upstairs to their empty bedroom, nearly unresponsive, and whispered, “What's happening to us?” in a horrified tone that made her want to scream. But she didn't leave. 

Until a doctor who she'd become semi-friends with at the hospital mentioned that she'd taken a job in Europe, one that would last her a year or two, but that she couldn't find anyone to sublet her place in Bethesda. “I want to have somewhere to come  _ back  _ to when I'm finished in Europe,” she said over lunch, waving her fork in the air, “but I've asked everyone I know, and no one can do it. I don't know what the hell I'm going to do.”

And that was when Scully had an idea. 

\---

_ It's just temporary,  _ she had told herself, told Mulder, told her mother on the phone again and again and again.  _ It's an opportunity. It'll save us, give us a chance to explore our lives outside each other… This'll be so good for us, just you wait… It's just temporary. It's for the best. I swear to God, it's for the best.  _

But she's been living in this house for over a year—this awful, gigantic fucking house controlled by a computer; Dr. Gerhard had spent hours programming it to fit Scully and her lifestyle before she moved in—and things just seem to be getting worse and worse. She has a appointment with a therapist, but she's skeptical of what it'll help. She still has nightmares about her son. She still misses Mulder, as much as she did when she was living at home. 

She doesn't still wish the world had ended. She doesn't wish she'd never been assigned to the X-Files. She wishes that she could've been there to save her sister. She wishes Mulder's sister had been alive, waiting for him at the end of the search, so he'd have some family left, someone to tie him to the present. She wishes Duane Barry had never broken into her apartment and dragged her away. She wishes her daughter's life hadn't been brief and so fucking painful; she wishes she could've known her outside of a few rushed days in December of 1997. She wishes that Mulder had never gone to Oregon, never walked out of her apartment so soon after their son was born and that she hadn't told him to go. She wishes she'd never let that social worker carry her son away. (Her favorite daydream is still the one with the three of them together.)

She wishes that she could go home, move back in and be happy with her partner (her  _ husband _ ), and he'd be waiting for her, scoop her up and spin her around like they're kids in a horrible romantic comedy they don't belong in, and all would be forgiven and they'd be okay. She wishes she could go home. But she can't. 

Her wedding ring around her neck is an incredible weight. 

\---

_ He doesn't understand, doesn't understand why she's doing it, and he pleads and pleads with her to explain, but all she does is give him this incredibly sad look and say nothing. Shake her head when he pleads with her not to. Goddamnit, he knew they were bad, but he didn't know that they were  _ this  _ bad.  _

_ He can't lose her. He never thought he'd lose her like this.  _

_ “Scully, please,” he says softly.  _

_ “This isn't forever, Mulder,” she whispers, and she's not looking at him as she retrieves bags from the closet. She already has bags packed, and he feels like he's going to throw up; how long has she had them packed? “Dr. Gerhard will only be gone for a year or two; that's plenty of time for you… for  _ both  _ of us to work on ourselves. And by the time she returns, hopefully…” _

_ “Hopefully?” he asks, his voice cracking. “Scully, you're my… We've been together for years now. Years. You can't just…” And he realizes that he's clutching at his wedding ring like a lifeline, because it is. _

_ “We need this,” says Scully, and she's crying, tears streaming down her face. “ _ I _ need this, Mulder.  _ You _ need this.” _

_ He shakes his head. He needs her. He's always needed her.    _

_ “This is going to be good for us,” she says. “It'll help us. It'll  _ save _ us.” _

_ “I can't do this without you,” he whispers. He's lost everyone else—his parents, his sister, his son—and he can't, he can't lose her, too.  _

_ “Yes, you can,” she tells him sternly. “You can, Mulder. I know you can. You need to get better, for us.” _

_ “Please don't do this,” he pleads, and she wraps her arms around him, soothes him quietly, but there's a quietness about her, a detachment that he recognizes from months. They've drifted so far apart that he can barely even fathom any of this. He loves her so much, and he tells her, but she shakes her head, kisses his cheek and leaves. And he's left there. And he doesn't know what the fuck to do. _

\---

They meet up almost regularly, at various restaurants in the area. Scully won't come home and he won't go to her new place and it all feels like a destructive cycle that will never, ever end. But he has to see her. It's been over a year since they've lived together. 

He texts and asks if they can meet at this diner in DC they used to go to all the time. (He took her to eat pancakes there after the Tooms case; he'll never forget the way she smiled at him, sweetly and a little snug, across the table.) She agrees, ends her text with,  _ Looking forward to seeing you, _ and the most hopeful part of him is happy, but the bitterest part of him thinks,  _ Liar.  _ (He hates this part of him. The resentful, angry part who hid in an office and didn't talk to his wife, ask her what was wrong or comfort her, who walked away and left her alone with their son thirteen years. He hates himself so much, and he misses her, and he doesn't know what to do.)

Mulder gets to the diner first and waits. It looks completely different from the way he remembers—painted green instead of bright blue, a different model, different uniforms for the waitresses. He wonders if their pancakes taste the same. 

His heart thuds a little when Scully enters. It feels like forever since he's seen her. 

The lights of the diner wash out her face. She looks worn out, drawn with a stubbly pencil with smudged edges. Like she could easily disappear. He’s catching her at the end of a shift at the hospital, exhausted, hair slipping out of her ponytail. She's fixing it differently now, loose and wavy and curly around her face, and she is beautiful. She isn't wearing her ring. 

“I ordered your coffee the way you like it,” he tells her, waving her over. He's missed her. Seeing her again feels like a rush, a burst of cold water in his veins. He wants to hold her, to fall to his knees and beg her to come home. He tells himself that she wouldn't have agreed to come if she didn't want to see him.

“Thank you.” She rubs her eyes with two fingers as she sits down, offers him a thin, tired smile. “It’s good to see you,” she says, and she sounds like she means it.

“You too.” He smiles back, pushes the mug across the table towards her. It’s grown cold in the waiting. They agreed on eight o’clock and it’s eight thirty. She takes a sip and winces at the temperature.

“I’ve missed you,” he says before he can stop himself.

She fiddles with the box of Sweet n Lows, not looking at him. “Don’t.” Her voice is tense and tired. 

“I think I need to,” says Mulder. He wants her to know what it's been like, how much he has missed her. “It hasn’t been the same without you. I’ve been lonely.” The house is too empty, the silence practically echoing. It was silent before, but he never noticed; now it's so obvious that it's painful.

“I’ve been lonely, too.” Her jaw sets in place, upset. “But you know it has to be this way. I've told you why this needs to happen, why we need time apart."

He huffs out a sigh, annoyed. “Because you needed space?”

“Because I was trapped in that house, Mulder, and there was no clear way out.” Her voice breaks a little, the loose strands of hair hanging in front of her face. “I was suffocating. I needed to breathe.”

“Are you breathing now?” His voice is low, maybe a little accusatory. His fingers tap frantically on the plastic-y table top, sticky with the remnants of a thousand breakfasts.

She breathes out. “I don’t know,” she whispers.

He doesn't say anything, fiddles with the menu. “I want to give you the space you need to recover, Mulder,” says Scully suddenly. “We couldn't keep doing that. We weren't communicating. We'd grown so far apart that I barely even recognized you anymore.”

“It wasn't all me,” he says suddenly, involuntarily. “You'd pulled away, too, you know. You worked so much and I barely saw you… Every spring, you'd sink into this… state of denial or isolation or whatever, right around William's birthday, and you'd tell me you were fine every single time I asked. You were barely even present that last year before you left. You left me alone, emotionally and physically, before you even walked out the door… You cannot pretend that this was all me.”

Scully shuts her eyes wearily. “Don’t, Mulder. Please. It doesn't matter who's fault it is; we both know this decision was for the best.”

“Was it?” he says softly. 

She opens her eyes, looking down at the table. The light catches her at an odd angle, and her hair falls across her face like filtered sunlight. Before he can stop himself, he reaches across the table and tucks the loose strands behind her ear. She stares into the coffee, unblinking, her eyes just a little wet.

“Come home,” he says softly, his fingers against her cheek. “One night. Just one.” 

“Mulder, I can’t.” Her fingernails are gnawed to the quick. She hasn’t chewed her nails in years, he thinks; or maybe she had been and he just hadn’t noticed.

“So we can talk,” he says, suddenly desperate to know every detail, everything she went through that he'd missed. “I think we need to. There's so many things we didn't talk about before…”

“We're talking now,” she says petulantly, leaning away from his hand. 

“Scully,” he says. Her name tumbles out of his mouth, loose and tangled in the air. Guilt clogs his throat. He has so many things to apologize for; but then again, she hurt him, too. They hurt each other.

There’s a pause of some sort between them. She opens her mouth, closes it. He slides his other hand across the table to touch hers.

She stands, so fast that her knees hit the bottom of the table, yanking her hand away. “I can’t do this, Mulder. I have to go. I’ll see you later.”

“Scully,” he says again, pleading. 

Her mug tips over, making a sharp clanking sound against the table, brown liquid sloshing like a flood towards the ketchup bottle. The old man at the end of the counter turns to look at them in surprise. Some of the waitresses raise their eyebrows.

Scully blinks hard, looking at the ground. “I have to go,” she repeats, stepping closer to the table. “I love you. I’ll see you later.”

Stunned, he says, “Scully…” again, ready to say it back, over and over again until she understands. But all he can seem to be able to say is her name. He's frozen, speechless, helpless.

She cups his cheek, beard stubble under her hands, and kisses him. “I love you,” she repeats. “I always will. But I can't do this.” And then she's turning and leaving. He reaches for her but she's already gone, walking away and letting the door slam hard behind her. Her car is parked out front; Mulder watches her leave from the giant window he is sitting by. He grabs a pile of napkins and mops up the coffee. He looks at the top of the table until it doesn’t look like anything anymore. He tries not to think of her, replays her  _ I love you _ in his mind over and over again.

It wasn't permanent, she told him when she left. She'll be back someday. He wants to believe that. He  _ has  _ to believe that.

The waitress asks him if he wants anything else. He orders another coffee. It’s an all-night diner, and there doesn’t seem to be much point in going home.   
  



End file.
